e Captain
ordered it to change front and open fire. This additional opposition
served for a time to entirely check the enemy.

The Eighty-eighth and Forty-second Indiana, compelled, as their officers
claim, to make a detour to the left and rear, in order to escape capture
or utter annihilation, found General Negley, and were ordered to remain
with him, and finally to retire with him in the direction of Rossville.
This, however, I did not ascertain until ten hours later in the day.

Firing having now ceased in my front, and being the only mounted officer
or mounted man present, I left the Fifteenth Kentucky and One Hundred
and Fourth Illinois temporarily in charge of Colonel Taylor, and hurried
back to see General Thomas or Negley, and urge the necessity for more
troops to enable me to re-establish the line. On the way, and before
proceeding far, I met the Second Brigade of our division, Colonel
Stanley, advancing to my support. Had it reached me an hour earlier, I
feel assured that I would have been able to maintain the position which
I had just been compelled to abandon. I directed Colonel Stanley to form
a line of battle at once, at right angles with the road and on its left,
facing north. Returning to Colonel Taylor, I ordered him to fall back
with the Fifteenth Kentucky and One Hundred and Fourth Illinois, and
form in rear of the left of Stanley's line, as a support to it. Soon
after we had got our lines adjusted, the enemy pressed back the
skirmishers of the Fifteenth Kentucky and One Hundred and Fourth
Illinois, who had not been retired with the regiments, and, following
them up, drove in also the skirmish line of Stanley's brigade, whereupon
the Eleventh Michigan (Colonel Stoughton), and the Eighteenth Ohio
(Lieutenant-Colonel Grosvenor), gave him a well-directed volley, which
brought him to a halt. Our whole line then opened at short range, and he
wavered. I gave the order to advance, then to charge, and the brigade
rushed forward with a yell, drove the enemy fully one-fourth of a mile,
strewing the ground with his dead and wounded, and capturing many
prisoners. Among the latter was General Adams, the commander of a
Louisiana brigade.

Finding now that Colonel Taylor had not followed the movement with his
regiment and the One Hundred and Fourth Illinois, and seeing the
necessity for some support for a single line so extended, I hastened to
the rear, and, being unable to find Taylor where I had left him, I
ind